Walking Waikīkī – Art is Everywhere

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Walking the streets of a major city (or truly, almost anywhere) there are opportunities to see art of all sorts — commissioned sculptures, carvings and paintings at restaurants and other establishments, even street art, dusty with footprints. In the rush to get from here to there, it’s easy to pass and not see the interesting, the unusual, that which adds a bit of beauty, novelty, or unexpected information to your day.

I walked along the shore of the Pacific Ocean from Waikīkī to Diamond Head and had opportunity to see a variety of sculptures, mosaics, wood carvings, murals, even stencil art on the sidewalks. Not all of the art I stopped to see was museum quality art, but every piece added flavor and dimension to my visit, offering a perspective of the city through a different lens.

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The above sculpture – photographed on my way to Diamond Head, mid morning, without leis adorning the surfer and seal, and photographed again on my return, mid afternoon, adorned with the traditional leis. As a first time visitor to Hawaii, I remained fascinated at the frequency I saw leis used as a gesture of welcome – and not only to tourists as would be expected. Leis on business people, on people relaxing on the beach, and (photo proof) on sculptures.

The seal and surfer sculpture, titled Makua and Kila, is set into a rocky fountain on the beach promenade. It’s based on a children’s story by author Fred Van Dyke and weaves traditional Hawaiian values of respect for family and respect for the ocean into the story of friendship. (artist Holly Young)

Surf Board Inofrmation Plaque

Perhaps signage doesn’t qualify as art for many people, but when the sign includes a surf board, photography prints, and typography it goes on my list of that which is “interesting, unusual,  adds a bit of beauty, novelty, or unexpected information” to my day. Upon reading a short list of facts about surfing I learned more than if I hadn’t read the list. Obviously.

Did you know that Mark Twain tried surfing on his visit to the Hawaiian islands in 1866 – unsuccessfully? Or that by the 1900s surfing had nearly died out, partly because of opposition from missionaries who thought time should be spent in more upstanding activities? That Waikīkī means “spouting water”? Or that the longest ride on the surf was by Duke Kahanamoku in 1917 who caught a 35″ wave and rode it 1 1/4 miles to shore? (He was an Olympic champion and the “father of surfing…”)

That’s what the sign says.

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The statue of Mahatma Gandhi is located in Kapiolani Park in front of the Honolulu Zoo. It has a checkered past — or at least the donor of the statue has a checkered past — but the statue of Gandhi does catch your attention, located in the midst statues of Hawaiian kings, surfers, and dolphins.

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Here’s a more typical statue,  a preaching Saint Augustine standing near the church entrance that bears a longer name, St. Augustine by the Sea Catholic Church.

Incredibly, a (long) search through the halls of Google turned up exactly nothing about this specific statue. So…

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And then the less serious, but equally fun art — the wooden carving and another lei.

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And the hula dancer stenciled on the sidewalk and up a set of steps. I call it bread crumb art.

Follow the hula dancer and find breakfast!

New York City – So Much to See, So Much to Do!

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Coffee to Start the Day © 2014 Bo Mackison

Start the morning with the largest cup of coffee in sight. A very good beginning.

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Harlem School Children’s Mural © 2014 Bo Mackison

Then a walk through the neighborhood, brightened by a long wall of children’s. There is something about community art that makes the whole street a happier place to walk

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MOMA Interior © 2014 Bo Mackison

Pre-baby-shower duties performed, we took a two break and visited MOMA. We arrived early enough to beat the Saturday crowd, and so had no lines to negotiate. Matisse’s Cut Out Exhibit was a surprise bonus (no photos inside the exhibit though.)

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Shower for Smudge © 2014 Bo Mackison

Baby shower fun and games. So happy we were able to be there to celebrate with daughter, soon to be mama.

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Tea Blossom © 2014 Bo Mackison

After the party, it was time to relax with a cup of tea. Specially brewed with a tea blossom – a bud of tightly wrapped tea leaves that opens like a flower when submerged in hot water. Beautiful.

The Story of My Healing Journey and The Restorative Power of Art – “The Barrier Series”

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Threatened © 2011 Bo Mackison

“Let go of the need for perfection, perfection bought at a high cost. Embrace imperfection, acknowledge mistakes, claim the lessons they provide. Embrace change.” ~ Bo Mackison

I’ve had an on and off affair with the label “mental illness” — a label that defined me for many years.

I hated it; I needed it. I pushed it away; I pulled it close.

That label deprived me of the basic experiences of choosing life and living it fully; it also allowed me to abdicate taking responsibility for my life and the choices I made.

Behaviors, lived over years, became habits. They settled deep within me:

  • as a child when I developed highly creative but pathological strategies for body, mind, and soul survival
  • as an adult while I was in the throes of deep depressions and slow recoveries
  • while I was fighting demons from my childhood, searching musty rooms in my mind with a dimly flickering match light

Defenses and behaviors I erected as walls of protection were no longer functional, viable, needed, wanted. Yet, it was what I understood.

I’ve had to let go so I could grab onto a better way. Caught in the pause between the two trapeze bars, I was dangling in a mighty discomfiting place.

It took many years for me to understand that letting go of behaviors that mark even a functioning mental illness would grace me with the freedom I yearned for, but hadn’t fully experienced:

  • not as a child in a puzzling environment
  • not as an adolescent who carried demons in her hand luggage wherever she wandered
  • not as an adult trying to function in the challenging world of careers and marriage-with-children, while burying the past and eventually losing the ability to even acknowledge it
  • not as a woman in the prime-time of life who suddenly crashed head-long into reality and suffered through a crushing breakdown

I worked for years to repair my body and mind; I worked even harder to repair my spirit.

Living under the shadow of the statement “I had a mental breakdown” provided a certain cover. Even after the initial stages, after in-depth therapy spanning two decades, and after reclaiming a life of wholeness, doubt lingers and unwelcome questions pop up.

There is the voice harbored deep in my subconscious that occasionally breaks through. It questions my actions, my motives, my plans, my challenges, my courage, my decisions, my art, my life. It questions my EVERYTHING.

Then, once again, I must re-affirm my strength, stand firm, and repeat:

  • I am responsible for my thoughts, my words, my actions.
  • There is no one else to blame for my failures, short-comings, errors in judgement.
  • I take full ownership of my mistakes and claim them, but I also claim the lessons learned.
  • This is no excuse living.

It was hard, excruciatingly so at times. It was necessary. It was the only way. And it remains so.

Because as long as I blame the past for mistakes I make in the present, as long as I don’t acknowledge mistakes and accept them as the learning experiences they are, I do not learn the lessons. I have an excuse to push away change and healing.

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Art Heals! © 2013 Bo Mackison

Why am I writing about this?

Because while I created photographs for public presentations, photographs for art shows and festivals, photographs for art centers and museum shows, I also created photography, did art as a healing practice, and spent much time reconnecting with the natural world. This continues as my daily practice.

Creative activities are healing.

I believe nature offers opportunities for connection, the arts offer opportunities for self-expression, and life offers continued opportunities for growth and self-discovery.

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Over the next weeks, I’ll be re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling somewhat vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in the bowels of my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.

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A Meditation in the Desert
Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

The Desert has Many Teachings

In the desert,
Turn toward emptiness,
Fleeing the self.
Stand alone,
Ask no one’s help,
And your being will quiet,
Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,
Endeavor to free them;
Those who are free, praise.
Care for the sick,
But live alone,
Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,
To kindle Love’s fire
With the twigs of a simple life.
Thus you will live in the desert.

– Mechthild of Magdeburg
from The Desert has Many Teachings,
translated by Jane Hirschfield

Reflections from my Journal

In the desert, emptiness is everywhere. It touches me most deeply after the sun sets, when a sliver of moon sets its place, offering direction, but little illumination. Then darkness descends.

The world slows in labored breathing, a pause, preparing for a new day.

To free yourself is to ask for nothing, to find hidden resources and strength developed from living each day authentically. Waiting, until the time is right for the right question, the question is asked, an answer received.

Love’s fire, caught in the crook of a desert branch. Fire-bright in harsh light, precarious, entangled. Lines and curves, shadows and light, a love-story.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring creative photography. poetry, and emotion in a new series featuring desert botanicals.

Barriers – A Series

These twelve photographs are from my portfolio “Barriers”. I explore the journey of claiming my story and sharing my healing process, using my photography as a stepping off platform. I have posted each photograph with my story compiled from journals, letters, and personal conversations during the past two weeks. This is the series in completion.

I.

23 Lizard in Bisbee Arizona

Threatened © 2011 Bo Mackison

Let go of the need for perfection – perfection bought at a high cost.
Embrace imperfection, acknowledge mistakes, claim the lessons they provide. Embrace change.   ~ Bo Mackison

II.

Barbed Wire

Barbed Wire © 2012 Bo Mackison

Your life with its immensity and fear . . . now bounded, now immeasurable, it is alternately stone in you and star.
~
Rainer Maria Rilke, from Evening

III.

Warehouse in Winter

Boarded Window © 2011 Bo Mackison

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude
in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  ~ Viktor E Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

IV.

Barrio Brewery

Barrio Window © 2012 Bo Mackison

“We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds.”
~ Pema Chödrön When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times

V.

Bathed in Bright Lights

Bathed in Bright Lights © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”
~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times

VI.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth, and that is not speaking it.” ~ Naomi Wolf

VII.

Bisbee Arizona

Art Lives © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Art is not a part of life, it is not an addition to life, it is the essence of those pieces of us that make us fulfilled.
That give us hope. That give us dreams and provide the world a view very different than what it would have been without us.”  ~ Hasan Davis

VIII.

Riot Art © 2011 Bo Mackison

Riot Art © 2011 Bo Mackison

Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable,
there we also stand already quite near its transformation.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

IX.

Fire Escapes

A Means of Escape © 2010 Bo Mackison

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Confucius

 X.

Defaced Wall II

Beyond, The World © 2012 Bo Mackison

Trees are sanctuaries.  Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.  They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Hermann Hesse

XI.

Looking Upwards

Looking Upwards © 2011 Bo Mackison

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

XII.

Southwest at the End of the Medical Records Tunnel

Sunny Days at the End of the Medical Records Tunnel © 2012 Bo Mackison

“The portal of healing and creativity always takes us into the realm of the spirit.”  ~ Angeles Arrien

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  “Barriers” – a twelve part series exploring photography, possibilities, and the healing process.